{"id":886946,"date":"2026-09-07T16:56:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T16:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/886946\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T16:56:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T16:56:10","slug":"virginia-womens-soccer-fails-to-impress-v-georgetown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/886946\/","title":{"rendered":"Virginia Women\u2019s Soccer Fails to Impress v Georgetown"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing this at 10:30 on Monday morning.\u00a0 I was traveling over the weekend, so I got around to watching this game late anyway, but truth be told, I still haven\u2019t yet thought of what to say about this game.\u00a0 There was nothing wrong about the game, nothing glaring about the team\u2019s performance.\u00a0 There was also nothing particularly noteworthy about the game either.\u00a0 I took three pages of notes, and half of my notes were just noting the substitutions.\u00a0 \u00a0This was a rather dour game.<\/p>\n

Georgetown, for their part, had scheduled a heavy dose of the ACC for their non-conference slate, having already played Stanford (a 2 \u2013 0 loss) and Virginia Tech (a 2 \u2013 1 loss) before Virginia.\u00a0 Georgetown\u2019s best player, and probably the overall player of the match, was keeper Reiley Fitzpatrick who was successful in defending a pair of one-v-one breakaways.\u00a0 Fitzpatrick was also very quick off her line snuffing out multiple long ball, over the back line, Virginia attacks.<\/p>\n

And going over the top was clearly central to the Virginia game plan because Aniya Collier got the start at center forward in the absence of Sophia Bradley (who was nowhere to be seen). Collier does have speed, and she got two shots off of long balls, but most of the long balls played were just that- too long.\u00a0 Long, over-the-top balls, even if they don\u2019t succeed in springing Collier or wingbacks Carrie Helfrich and Liv Rademaker, can be useful if they can pull the defense out of shape, but that never happened.\u00a0 Georgetown was, to borrow Steven Swanson\u2019s favorite term when praising an opponent, \u201corganized,\u201d and the Cavaliers never really came close to breaking down the Hoyas.<\/p>\n

Swanson made two changes to his starters entering the game: as noted, Collier got the start at striker, and Liv Rademaker replaced Faith Broering amongst the back three.\u00a0 It is still early in the season, but both Helfrich and Kyra Koopman both seem more incisive on the right side, and with Rademaker playing centrally, both spent time on the left wing.<\/p>\n

And that was part of the problem with this game; many players just seemed off.\u00a0 Teams win games when their stars play like stars, their good players play above themselves, and their role players are impactful when they come in.\u00a0 None of which happened yesterday.\u00a0 Helfrich was ineffective on the left; Addison Halpern never got into a rhythm; Sarah Flammia and Kyndal Shuler, who both provided a spark when they entered vs Tennessee, were sparkless against Georgetown.\u00a0 Jordyn Hardeman got her pocket picked on at least four occasions, and Allie Ross was largely anonymous.\u00a0 Both teams struggled to get into a rhythm, as there could easily have been 25 throw-ins in the first 25 minutes of the game.<\/p>\n

Georgetown closed out the first half on a trot, dominating play for the last 10 minutes with a high-degree-of-difficulty one-v-one from a wide angle and a lovely bullet cross that had it found a Hoya would have been in the back of the net.\u00a0 But Georgetown is looking like a mid-table Big East team at the moment, and couldn\u2019t convert.<\/p>\n

Virginia, as is becoming a regular thing, came out on the front foot in the second half, and, well, they had their chances.\u00a0 Hardeman had a lovely shot that keeper Fitzpatrick parried wide, and she got up quickly enough to deflect the follow-up shot.\u00a0 A corner found Rademaker unmarked on the back post, but the ball got stuck between her feet, and she couldn\u2019t convert.\u00a0 Halpern had a one-on-one with the keeper, dribbled around her, but couldn\u2019t get the shot off, and Georgetown\u2019s defense covered up, denying her, and then Ross, what should have been an empty-net goal.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Ella Carter, who is becoming the embodiment of a second-half player, twice led a couple of counter-attacks but would end up holding on to the ball for a dribble too long.\u00a0 One of those times Ross was offside, and the other time Collier had to stop her run, or she would have been offside.\u00a0\u00a0 The ball simply has to be played much faster.\u00a0 And Carter wasn\u2019t alone.\u00a0 On two other occasions, I found myself mumbling at the screen, \u201cNow.\u00a0\u00a0 Now!\u201d<\/p>\n

There were really only two highlights for a veteran observer of the women\u2019s team.\u00a0 One was seeing the continued growth of Kathryn Kelly, who is, for the first time in her five years, getting real minutes.\u00a0 She\u2019s a solid defender who understands positioning and using her body, which she did repeatedly against the much faster Abby Droner.\u00a0 Guile winning out over athleticism is one of the reasons why I watch sport.<\/p>\n

And the second is watching Koopman when someone tries to dribble her.\u00a0 Koop\u2019s back leg is maybe the best foot on this entire soccer team.\u00a0 It\u2019s only been six games now, but I feel like she\u2019s the best on-ball defender I\u2019ve seen in my decade of covering Virginia women\u2019s soccer.<\/p>\n

So, when the highlights of a game are Kelly\u2019s positioning and Koopman\u2019s dribble stuffing, that is probably all you need to know about the game.<\/p>\n

The Verdict:\u00a0 One hundred and eighty minutes of soccer against Tennessee and Georgetown produced just a single goal.\u00a0 Goals are going to be hard to come by, at least for as long as Gio Canali is in Poland for the U20 Women\u2019s World Cup.<\/p>\n

Next Up:\u00a0 Virginia travels to Winston-Salem to take on Wake Forest on Saturday, September 12th.\u00a0 Game time is 7:00pm and can be seen on ACC Network Extra.\u00a0 Wake is on a roll: until defeating #21 Florida in Gainesville 2 \u2013 1, they had not allowed a goal in their first six games.\u00a0 There might be more room at the top of the ACC this year.\u00a0 Notre Dame has had some injury issues and Florida State and UNC both seem \u201coff\u201d this year.\u00a0 Wake is very much on an upward trajectory the past four years, and I know they know that.\u00a0 Getting a win against Virginia in the ACC\u2019s opening week would be a heck of a statement.\u00a0 How is Virginia going to handle the pressure?<\/p>\n

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